"I was contacted by Udemy out of the blue," Smith remembers.
"They said they liked the course, and thought it was ideal for
their marketplace."

While now 71-year-old Smith wasn't initially thrilled to put
together a course — after all, he had a full-time job to hold
down — he realized its benefits when he fell ill and wasn't able
to meet his copywriting deadlines for months at a time.

"I went through a terrible period until July where I could do
very little writing, and suddenly realized I had money coming in
from Udemy, so why didn't I run down the copywriting side and
focus on the courses?" Smith says.

By that time, he had written a handful of courses on
topics including copywriting, SEO, punctuation, and conducting
presentations, which were bringing in $2,000 to $4,000 a month.
"I looked at it and was like, 'This money is coming in, and I'm
doing absolutely nothing whatsoever!'" Smith exclaims.

So he started putting some effort into marketing his courses.
This summer, he sent an email to his existing students alerting
them to his other Udemy courses, and found his side income rose
to $5,500 to $6,500. In November, he earned $8,500 from the
courses. "There was a real change there because I realized what
an opportunity it was," Smith explains.

Smith, shown here, has
turned his online courses into a primary source of
income.Len
Smith

Overall, Smith's courses have reached nearly 30,000 individual
students, some of whom have taken more than one of his courses.

When he's creating a course, he estimates that he spends 30 to 40
hours a week, but once the course is live, maintaining and
marketing it takes only about 10 hours a week.

He has scaled his copywriting business back to his two main
clients, both of whom give him enough notice that he's able to
plan assignments in advance.

"I think that the courses that do well — although that's relative
depending on your topic — all show some real social proof that
the creator has seen it and done it themselves, rather than being
trainers talking about a subject," he says.

Smith points out that because much of Udemy's audience is
young men looking to make a quick fortune as web or app
developers, his successful courses probably won't make an
appearance in the site's most popular anytime soon.

However, he does have some advice for people who want to create
an income stream from their own expertise via Udemy: Join
Udemy
Studio, the Facebook group administrated by the company
that's open to anyone interested in creating a course, and take
Udemy's
free tutorial on building a successful course.

"I could never live the lifestyle that my wife and I enjoy
without working," says Smith. "We live a lavish lifestyle, so I
always intended to work forever, as it were. I'm retired in terms
of my age, but it's very fun — I enjoy doing this."